Waitrose edges Sainsbury’s in Christmas ad stakes

Waitrose is visiting the Geoffrey Boycott Appreciation Society up in’t Dales – courtesy of adam&eveDDB – and the poor souls are snowed in, it being Christmas.

But Waitrose comes to the rescue, naturally (bet they’re giving the venison at £60 per kilo a miss).

Nice twist at the end.

Meanwhile, in what we might call the cruiserweight Christmas championship (John Lewis and M&S seem to be the heavyweights this year, JL’s Moz moving ahead on YouTube), Sainsbury’s and Wieden+Kennedy give us a festive version of this year’s long-running campaign, trying to get us all singing. No bespoke epic from Sainsbury’s this year.

This campaign’s a bit like a clockwork mouse, you expect it run out of energy although it hasn’t so far.

Interesting to see colour and typography playing such a big role in a broadcast campaign.

So: Waitrose is different, popular on social media. Good way to show the groaning Christmas table in a different context. Is it entirely convincing? Not quite but some will be.

MAA creative scale: 8.

Sainsbury’s? Some have called it down market and it is, has been all year. Seems to be aiming fairly and squarely at Tesco.

About Stephen Foster

Stephen is a former editor of Marketing Week and London Evening Standard advertising columnist. He wrote City Republic for Brand Republic and is a partner in communications consultancy The Editorial Partnership.